


Have I Got A Story For You

by EsdeeAr



Series: Lands' Ending Collection [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Healing, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-01 23:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13305282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EsdeeAr/pseuds/EsdeeAr
Summary: A recounting of the third time I met Tera d'Kalin.





	Have I Got A Story For You

**Author's Note:**

> A SS Literary gift for Medweds on WritScrib. Cutting it close, I know!

The first time I met Tera, I was 19, tending bar in a terribly lit dive. She seemed like just any other customer, until she didn’t. When she left, my life was changed.

But this isn’t that story.

The second time I met Tera, I was 27, still tending bar in a better lit dive, because even when your life changes, it doesn’t really. I didn’t remember her at first, and didn’t until much later. When she left, my world was changed.

This isn’t that story, either.

This story starts when I went out the back door of my bar, spuriously to take out the trash, obstinately to sneak a cigarette. Even nearing forty, I never failed to catch hell about this nasty habit of mine, and under the cover of darkness, in the cold, it was easy to take a few puffs without anyone being the wiser. Bag in one hand, the other fumbling for the pack I had tucked away in a jacket pocket, I bumped open the bar on the door with my hip and swiveled out into the dimly lit air of the alley, fully intent on finding my cigarettes rather than the superficial task at hand.

That’s probably why I didn’t see the crumpled figure at the base of the dumpster at first; I was too busy swinging the bag up into the waiting maw of said trash receptacle, lips wrapped around the cig I’d finally found. As the clatter of trash finding the back of the container let me know it’d landed properly, I flicked on my lighter, bringing it up and pausing as I realized what I’d taken for just another snow drift was, in fact, wrapped in some sort of fabric, a huddled mass seeking shelter against the chill wind that whipped between buildings.

Of course I lit my cigarette before I checked out what it was. Priorities are priorities, after all.

Once my hands were free, I used the dull red light of the cherry to guide them, carefully prodding at the mass with the left, while the right stood ready to drop a chop if necessary. The mass shifted, a faint, almost familiar groan emitting from within, and since I was fairly certain I wasn’t about to be attacked, I caught a trailing edge and flipped the dingy fabric away.

Blonde hair matted with blood was the first thing saw when I flipped the blanket away, but it was the second thing that made me kick into overdrive, hurriedly helping up the battered figure and guiding her into the back door, then down the hall to the storeroom-cum-office. Easing her onto the two-seater in there, I carefully tried to arrange the blanket to both make sure it didn’t pull against anything that might be injured, and that it would cover the loveseat completely.

Last thing I needed was to have to explain bloodstains to the staff.

When I’d finished adjusting everything, I looked back up, only to find sapphire eyes, tired and bloodshot, staring back at me. My first question died in my throat, as did most the thoughts in my head. That second thing, the long, gnarled scar that crawled down the left side of her face, was still there, exactly as I remembered it, but everything else? It was as if someone had taken the face of my friend and tried to recreate it, every feature slightly sharper, slightly more elongated than it should be. The smile, weary, was almost familiar, but the eyes were completely wrong, too narrow, too high, with almost cat-like pupils and, most damning of all, not even the deep emerald they had always been.

“Sorry, I be not at my best.” The voice was almost the same, and I swallowed, trying to decide how to proceed with this. She must have noticed my hesitation, as the smile faltered, head tilted, examining my wary expression. Then, as if in afterthought, she closed her eyes and her features shimmered, blurring briefly, before settling into the face that I certainly knew.

Whatever this was, whoever this was, they were still someone in need, and I’d never been one to turn someone away. “Give me a second to get the first-aid kit, and something for you to drink.”

“If ye still have some of m’tea, I’d like a bit o’ tha.”

With a noncommittal noise, I got up to do just that, making sure the close the door behind me as I popped out in the bar area briefly, telling the part-timer he’d be on his own for a while, then grabbing a carafe of water off the hot plate and the kit from under the till. Back then, down the hallway, into the office, to find maybe-Tera now sitting up, carefully pulling strips of cloth away from her lower arms. I let her get to it as I set the kit down next to her, trusting that she knew what to do with it, before three steps to the other side of the room, where my desk was.

There was a pop behind me as I set the carafe down, that of the first-aid box being opened, and I dug my keys out of my pocket, then unlocked the top drawer. It took some digging to come up with the silver cylinder with fine gold filigree hiding in the back. I hadn’t ever been able to figure out how to open it, so hadn’t given it much thought in years. Kicking myself for not having gotten a cup from the bar, I had to resort to the now-empty coffee mug I’d been using earlier.

With a sheepish shrug, I handed the mug and the cylinder over, then tried not to make a point of staring as I picked up the hot water. Out of the corner of my eye I could make out her tracing the gold with her thumb, her lips moving slightly as she whispered something beyond my hearing. I abandoned all pretense of not watching, though, when that same gold flared brightly, spinning, then resolving itself into a single gold band around the top of the cylinder. The same thumb that had done the tracing now pressed against the band, the lid popped open, and every remaining doubt I had over whether or not this was my friend vanished. Tera had told me, when giving the container over all those years ago, not to bother trying to open it, as she’d be the only one to be able to.

Not that I’d let that stop me from trying, off and on, for more months than I care to admit.

She shook a few teaspoons worth of the contents into her mug, then held it out to me. It took me a moment to remember I was holding the hot water, but as soon as I did, I poured some in, the sharp scent of mint rising into the air and bringing back memory of our very first encounter. Despite the deep, mottled bruising on her arms, and the shallow scratch across her forehead, she was still the same beautiful, sad woman she had been, back when I was 19.

There were several long moments then, with her sitting, me standing, both watching as tiny shriveled bits absorbed the hot water, unfurling and tinting the liquid a light green. Even the odor of it was bright, energizing. I’m not sure what indicated it was ready, as it didn’t look nearly as deep in color as it had the only other time I’d seen her drink this tea, but there must have been something. She lifted the mug and despite the heat, took a long, deep draught.

Since I was watching the mug, I noticed the scratch first, its edges drawing inwards slowly at first, then faster, until there was nothing left of it but a smudge of blood across her skin. Immediately I looked down at her arms, where the last of the bruises were already vanishing. Apparently my confusion was difficult to miss, because she finished the mug, then brought it down into her lap, a no-longer-tired smile on her face.

“Looks like I have quite a story to tell you, my friend.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm planning on doing more with this universe in general, and Tera in particular. At the very least I will eventually tell the first and second tales, and might even get around to Tera's tale.


End file.
